How many chickens would you need to keep to supply all the meat and eggs your family eats?

[123RedBeard]

Shad,

Sounds like you need to take with @ChickenCanoe ... on chicken breed ...
Sorry can't tag him ...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/members/chickencanoe.72519/

Second try @Shadrach

Talk with @ChickenCanoe about Penedesenca's

Yeah, it worked!

 

[cmom]

I do raise White Leghorns and Dark Brown Leghorns. They are larger than hatchery stock and live longer. I have some older White Leghorns and they are my best layers.

My Leghorns even lay while they are molting maybe a little fewer eggs then, but they never stop laying.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

.

I mean, Shads numbers are hot garbage and therefore so are his conclusions. And those "conclusions" about a whole swath of this community are absolutely insulting and he led off with them in the OP. As Ridgerunner said - garbage in garbage out.

Whether or not Shad is as bad as his model is up for debate/personal opinion. ;P

I do find it funny though that shad can say things like "A few of the more intelligent posters seem to have understood", "providing for the family and not supporting the meat industry are self righteous delusional nonsense", and " Believing you are making a difference to the amount produced by the commercial concerns is in my view delusional"...

...Yet I'M the one throwing about insults somehow for pointing out how terrible his model is? XD

Well now!

 

[Molpet]

I mean, Shads numbers are hot garbage and therefore so are his conclusions. And those "conclusions" about a whole swath of this community are absolutely insulting and he led off with them in the OP. As Ridgerunner said - garbage in garbage out.

Whether or not Shad is as bad as his model is up for debate/personal opinion. ;P

I do find it funny though that shad can say things like "A few of the more intelligent posters seem to have understood", "providing for the family and not supporting the meat industry are self righteous delusional nonsense", and " Believing you are making a difference to the amount produced by the commercial concerns is in my view delusional"...

...Yet I'M the one throwing about insults somehow for pointing out how terrible his model is? XD

Well now!
View attachment 1964701

Umm why take the low road. I tend to ignore insults like they are not directed at me. Annoys the person//people that "I don't get it"

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Umm why take the low road. I tend to ignore insults like they are not directed at me. Annoys the person//people that "I don't get it"

I didn't. Shad told me to argue the numbers, so I did! I told him why nearly all his numbers were wrong and therefore his why his model is bad. I wasn't even the first or the last. Bad studies and getting things wrong happens, even to professionals. What determines peoples reactions is how you handle it next.
He said we're all delusional and not intelligent because we don't "get it". I still just assert that his model is bad and therefore can't be used to draw conclusions. Including his insulting ones.

(Additionally this isn't even getting into the sociology of non confrontation, of bystander effect and not challenging bad ideas in an era of rising absolute skepticism and anti-scientific rhetoric... Basically there's a lot of stuff showing that bad ideas and bad research don't go away if they're unchallenged.)

I did make a joke about his chickens being terrible though. Since he keeps insisting his numbers should be used, that's the only other conclusion I can come to. If I were raising chickens that were about 1.5-2lbs and only brooded 4 chicks once per year and was trying to compete with industrial markets whose birds are 10Xs bigger than mine and grow 5Xs faster... Well, yeah, I'd feel like people were delusional for raising chickens too.

Besides. As previously stated. Taking the low road I'd want to take if I did isn't permitted on BYC.

 

[Shadrach]

Second try @Shadrach

Talk with @ChickenCanoe about Penedesenca's

Yeah, it worked!

I have talked to him about them. They come from just up the road from me.

 

[Molpet]

I didn't. Shad told me to argue the numbers, so I did! I told him why nearly all his numbers were wrong and therefore his why his model is bad. I wasn't even the first or the last. Bad studies and getting things wrong happens, even to professionals. What determines peoples reactions is how you handle it next.
He said we're all delusional and not intelligent because we don't "get it". I still just assert that his model is bad and therefore can't be used to draw conclusions. Including his insulting ones.

(Additionally this isn't even getting into the sociology of non confrontation, of bystander effect and not challenging bad ideas in an era of rising absolute skepticism and anti-scientific rhetoric... Basically there's a lot of stuff showing that bad ideas and bad research don't go away if they're unchallenged.)

I did make a joke about his chickens being terrible though. Since he keeps insisting his numbers should be used, that's the only other conclusion I can come to. If I were raising chickens that were about 1.5-2lbs and only brooded 4 chicks once per year and was trying to compete with industrial markets whose birds are 10Xs bigger than mine and grow 5Xs faster... Well, yeah, I'd feel like people were delusional for raising chickens too.

Besides. As previously stated. Taking the low road I'd want to take if I did isn't permitted on BYC.

True about not challenging ideas
I posted that I do raise all my poultry and eggs... As an example of someone who does , so it can be done. A couple of others did also.

 

[Shadrach]

I hope you'll let us know how this goes Shad. I find it interesting that the clutch sizes are optimized with smaller numbers. Fewer chicks to keep track of helps in that situation where as in most US backyards there's plenty of protection what with runs and electric fences and such.

I read an article about a husband and wife that were let go from their public service jobs and started a similar business. The chickens are basically feral and they sell eggs and meat to locals and restaurants. Pretty cool situation!

I hadn't heard of such a scheme until the guys up the mountain asked me to help out.
Yeah, the clutch size thing catches a lot of people out who free range. It's not really relevant if you incubate, broody coop and integrate, or eat.
It does become very important if you free range as does having senior roosters and hens.
Flock cohesion and flock stability are massive topics. The basic problem I believe is that despite all the breeding chickens are not flock creatures by nature. How much you can suppress that natural instinct to have small family groups with keeping conditions is something we are going to learn a bit about in this project.

 

[Shadrach]

I mean, Shads numbers are hot garbage and therefore so are his conclusions. And those "conclusions" about a whole swath of this community are absolutely insulting and he led off with them in the OP. As Ridgerunner said - garbage in garbage out.

Whether or not Shad is as bad as his model is up for debate/personal opinion. ;P

I do find it funny though that shad can say things like "A few of the more intelligent posters seem to have understood", "providing for the family and not supporting the meat industry are self righteous delusional nonsense", and " Believing you are making a difference to the amount produced by the commercial concerns is in my view delusional"...

...Yet I'M the one throwing about insults somehow for pointing out how terrible his model is? XD

Well now!
View attachment 1964701

You're cracking me up.

 

[Shadrach]

Most people are not homesteader type of people. Everyone is different. In our younger years both my husband and I worked and paid off our home and paid cash for what we wanted instead of going into debt. We didn't use credit cards. I came from a farming background he didn't. We did eventually buy a farm and paid cash for it and he got his tractors and such and now we are pretty much self sustaining. We grow and preserve what we grow. We do sell some of our produce along with eggs. We have processed some birds but now I mostly sell the extra males which helps offset the feed costs. For many years I have been into showing my birds at poultry shows so some of my coops and pens are used for breeding and some are general purpose for eggs. I keep my backup breeding males in the general population coops and pens. I do use an incubator and hatch out all of my chicks usually 200/300 chicks yearly. I haven't processed birds in quite awhile. I don't have meat birds but do have dual purpose breeds. The cost to feed them then process them isn't cost effective for us. We are older retired people. We do have a butcher down the road. If we want a chicken dinner I go to the butcher. If a person has a family to feed, it may be more cost effective to process.

That's a lot of chickens for a coop, run and incubator system.
What do you do with the 200/300 chicks you hatch? You write you sell the extra males. Are they sold for meat?
The processing costs is something we are looking into now. It may prove to be more cost effective to have a commercial concern do the processing.